Why Aren More Feds Teleworking?
For all the benefits, including having political support, you’d think more federal workers would be teleworking. The reasons they aren’t are numerous. On the technology side, information security is a big concern. Many agencies don’t allow workers to take home information that is deemed sensitive. Laptops are hard to keep secure, and telework increases the possibility that information could be stolen. Some have suggested encrypting all data on the laptop, but encryption programs can be expensive and many IT managers avoid them because of the large amounts of time required to properly manage encryption. Some telework supporters say giving employees access to government databases through a virtual private network would remove the concern that data could be stolen or lost from laptops because the data would never leave the office. Workers would just access the data securely from home. But managers remain skeptical that the security would be robust. Other reasons include supervisors not wa
